Panorama 2s License Plate Challenge

BTW, something else I forgot to mention. CCTV cameras designed for capturing license plates use much larger sensors than typical CCTV cameras. (1/2 inch or more) This would not be practical or affordable in a dash cam. They also use special firmware designed for the purpose and have specific requirements for capture under different conditions. Dash cams would need to be constantly adjusted for changing conditions and the following examples, as I've said, are for fixed position cameras costing around two thousand dollars or more. As these are fixed position cameras they are manually adjusted for the specific conditions they are deployed in rather than the dynamic changing conditions of a windshield mounted camera.

License Plate Capture Traffic Modes
  1. Traffic Mode 1 - Used for a direct front or rear view of the traffic lane when vehicle speeds are between 12 MPH to 68 MPH (20 km/hr to 110 km/hr).
  2. Traffic Mode 2 - Used for a direct front or rear view of the traffic lane when vehicle speeds are faster such as a freeway. This traffic mode supports speeds between 56 mph and 112 mph (90 km/hr to 180 km/hr).
  3. Traffic Mode 3 - Used for an angled front or rear view of the traffic lane when vehicle speeds are between 12 MPH to 68 MPH (20 km/hr to 110 km/hr).
  4. Traffic Mode 4 - Used for parking lots to monitor parked cars or cars that are moving very slowly. Car speeds between 0 mph and 12 MPH (0 km/hr to 20 km/hr). Camera should be facing the front or back of vehicles directly.
 
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It is important to consider that license plates are different all over the world. Sizes of the plates, lettering and the color vary all over the world. The examples in the above post are very large plates (20.5 by 4.3 inches) that are at least a third of the width of the cars they are on and they are white plates with particularly large black numerals and letters. Here in the US and in many other countries license plates are about half that size in width (12.0 by 6.0 inches) and the lettering is much smaller. As well, the plates are often in different colors that are not as easy to capture in fast moving environments and many plates include state themed images and multi-colored backgrounds that offer additional challenges for video capture. The same scenario in the US with the same camera would likely not have performed so well. The above screen shots may be a good example of what the camera can do in Belarus but is not universally representative.

Interestingly, the dedicated license plate cameras I've been mentioning have firmware adjustments that can be set for the specific types of plates they are likely to be capturing in any given country including reflectivity, size, color, anticipated lighting, etc.
 
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Where I live in northern New England I am only several miles from the borders of two other states and as I live in a picturesque spot that is a tourist destination and also a ski area in the wintertime we get many visitors from all over. The result is that I get to see a wide variety of American and Canadian license plates. Some are more easy to capture than others on a dash cam regardless of which camera one is using or what driving situation you are in. Like the ones in @alexoll's post, the plates with plain white or simple light backgrounds and large dark numbers and lettering are the easiest to capture. Some are downright impossible like this example:
oregon.png

Whatever the ultimate solution may be for capturing plate numbers on current model dash cams, a really fun and interesting web site you guys may like checking out is http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/ to see just how many different styles and designs of plates there are around the globe.
 
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You've got no chance with some of those! We're quite boring over here in the UK - they tend to run automatic numberplate recognition systems here now everywhere - speed cameras, traffic cameras, garages, shopping centres, in police cars, you name it!

To help keep it all ticking over they have very specific standards around font size, spacing, style, colour and so on. You do get people who don't follow them and for a while the police used to be active in enforcing it, but lately they tend to have slacked off a little.

We're just changing over from a displayed tax disk to computerized so I'm guessing they'll start cracking down on anything that makes a plate slightly unreadable again soon here!
 
in many states in the US, LEOs and parking enforcement have license tag cameras that can scan a tag and have the data about the tag on the screen in mere seconds.
 
Damm jokiin :eek: i knew you guys was a colorfull bunch, but thats just insane.

We can get custom plates here at a high prize, but only as far as to what they say, the font and number of letters is fixed and so is the background color.
 
The state of Florida here in the US has some amusing, difficult to capture on dash camera vanity plates. It is almost as if Florida's plates were designed to be hard to fully read at a distance.

Florida.png

Florida2.png

Florida3.png
 
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